Standalone Pages

Friday, June 11, 2010

Politics, not science or safety

A great editorial appears in today's New Orleans Times Picayune on the subject of the "temporary" moratorium on deepwater drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.

In justifying its broad moratorium on deepwater drilling, the Obama administration emphasized that the measure was recommended by an Interior Department report prepared in consultation with scientists and industry experts.

But eight of the 15 members of the review panel are charging that the administration misrepresented their position by suggesting they supported a blanket moratorium that they actually oppose. Their criticism, and the administration's response, are evidence that the six-month stoppage is based on politics rather than on science.

Remember, folks. This is a regime run by people whose philosophy is to "never let a crisis go to waste." The moratorium isn't about science. It's not about safety. It's about gaining more and more control over the single most productive economic system the planet has ever known.

They've taken over insurance companies. They've taken over automobile manufacturing. They've taken over banks. They've taken over the world's most advanced and productive healthcare system. And now, it's clear that their sights are set on the lifeblood of the economy--energy.

As the Picayune's editorial staff correctly points out, this is not the "pause button" Secretary Salazar said it was. The industry doesn't work that way. With any significant passage of time, the highly specialized and steeply expensive deepwater drilling rigs will be leased out to other companies who are exploring for oil in other parts of the globe. Once those rigs are leased and start drilling off of Africa and South America, they aren't coming back for a long time. The "pause button" becomes the "kill switch."

In yesterday's edition of the Times Picayune, Governor Bobby Jindal said that the regime "just doesn't get it." During a phone conversation he had with White House Senior Advisor Valerie Jarrett, Jindal said Jarrett asked him "... again why the rigs simply wouldn't come back after six months."

"What worries me," Jindal said, "is I fear they think these rigs can just flip a switch on and off."

What worries me is that both Jindal and the Times Picayune are naive and entirely too trustful of this regime. Doing the right thing for the people of the Gulf Coast and the national economy is not on this regime's agenda. This is a crisis that they are exploiting as horribly as they are botching the response. These are not competent, well-meaning people seeking to do the greater good for the greater number. They are radical leftists, seeking to obtain the greatest control.